THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: This summer belongs to drama buffs. The third Abhinaya Summer Festival, organised by Abhinaya - a centre for drama learning - would unveil the beauty and mastery of modern drama during May 25-27 at Vyloppilli Samskrithi Bhavan.
The drama team of Abhinaya would travel across the State on wheels and will stage dramas at selected venues. The fest would come to the city after touring seven other districts.
The mainstay of the festival would be ‘Invisible Cities’, a dramatic adaptation of Italo Calvino’s much-illuminated work of the same name. The drama is directed by Firoz Khan, a graduate from the National School of Drama, New Delhi. Bandhu Prasad, attached with the drama school, said that the drama would be a vivid dramatic adaptation of ‘Invisible Cities.’
”The drama would revolve around the imaginary conversation between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo, as penned by Calvino. As a subtext to the main theme, the commotion in the metropolitan cities and the migration of people from one city to another would be faintly palpable in the drama. Several dramatic adaptations of the novel had appeared in north Indian states. But this is a fresh attempt in the South,” he said.
‘Pacha’, a drama directed by Surijith Gopinathan of Thrissur and ‘Suddha Maddalam’ directed by ‘Theatre Initiative Kerala’ would also be staged in the fest. Regarding the cooperation of two theatre groups, which is unusual in the contemporary drama world, Bandhu Prasad said that the decision was taken after finding that it can help revive the drama field.